"Flesh&Blood" Vol. 1 - Pirate Series Reading Club 🏴‍☠ ⛵

Japanese Language Book Clubs
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“Flesh&Blood” series home thread

Welcome to the “Flesh&Blood” Vol. 1 Reading Club!

This is a BL series by 松岡なつき about a boy who time-travels back to the time of pirates! Despite the series being labelled as BL, it starts off very lightly on that topic and rather dives into English and Spanish history of the time as well as famous pirate and non-pirate figures.

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Difficulty rating and reviews: FLESH & BLOOD 1 | L33

Forward to Vol. 2

Chapters

Chapter BookWalker % Page Numbers
Chapter 1 0% 5
Chapter 2 15% 45
Chapter 3 23% 70
Chapter 4 35% 109
Chapter 5 43% 134
Chapter 6 59% 180
Chapter 7 72% 222
Chapter 8 85% 261
Chapter 9 91% 282
予感 95% -not present-
あとがき 98% 294

Participants

  • I am planning to read this book
  • I am currently reading this book
  • I have finished this book
  • I am taking a break and will return
  • I have dropped the book and will not return
  • I don’t plan to read this book

0 voters

Please update your status accordingly whenever it changes.

Discussion Rules

Discussing anything is fine, be it about language questions, about the contents or about real historic events! Please state clearly which chapter (or roughly which percentage) you’re referring to, and please hide spoilers. Also, don’t forget the forum etiquette, of course.

Buying the Book

If you’re planning to buy the book on Bookwalker or Amazon and if you’re outside of Japan, you will need a VPN to buy them. Afterwards, you can download it to the app without the need for a VPN. I think you cannot read it in the browser without VPN, though.

Vol. 1 on Bookwalker
Vol. 1 on Amazon

Vocab sheet

Illustrations

Full color Extras

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Vol 1, ch 1, p 25

Vol 1, ch 1, p 25
Vol 1, ch 1, p 25974×1370 302 KB

Vol 1, ch 2, p 63

Vol 1, ch 2, p 63
Vol 1, ch 2, p 63964×1368 363 KB

Vol 1, ch 3, p 93

Vol 1, ch 3, p 93
Vol 1, ch 3, p 93964×1370 277 KB

Vol 1, ch 4, p 131

Vol 1, ch 4, p 131
Vol 1, ch 4, p 131954×1370 333 KB

Vol 1, ch 6, p 181

Vol 1, ch 6, p 181
Vol 1, ch 6, p 181956×1368 272 KB

Vol 1, ch 6, p 209

Vol 1, ch 6, p 209
Vol 1, ch 6, p 209962×1370 291 KB

Vol 1, ch 7, p 253

Vol 1, ch 7, p 253
Vol 1, ch 7, p 253962×1370 221 KB

Vol 1, ch 8, p 281

Vol 1, ch 8, p 281
Vol 1, ch 8, p 281956×1368 352 KB

Historical Figures, Events and Places

The book mentions a lot of real (as far as we know :sweat_smile:) historical figures and events. Here are some information resources on them. (Please be aware that if you want to go in 100% blind, these lists will contain some spoilers for you)

Please add Chapter, Page, if possible, when something is mentioned in the story.

Historical Figures

Álvaro de Bazán, Marquis of Santa Cruz (Ch 7, p. 249) Wikipedia article
Anne Boleyn (Ch 7, p. 230) Wikipedia article
Elizabeth I Wikipedia article
Francis Drake (Ch 6, p 189; many times before also) Wikipedia article
Francis Walsingham (Ch 5, p. 153) Wikipedia article
Henry VIII (Ch 6, p. 198) Wikipedia article
John Hawkins (Ch 3, p. 102): Britannica article
Judas Iscariote (Ch 6, p. 203) Wikipedia article
Marco Polo (Ch 3, p. 68) YouTube documentary clip (Japan a country of gold)
Mary Stuart Wikipedia article
Nicholas Hilliard (Ch 4, p. 126) Wikipedia article (painter)
Philip II (Ch 5, p. 161) Wikipedia article
Thomas Cavendish (Ch 5, p 136) Wikipedia article
Walter Raleigh (Ch 5, p. 136) Wikipedia article (the image on Wikipedia shows him in a painting with the pearl-earring)

Places

Buckland Abbey (Ch 6, p. 191) Wikipedia article; Travel Blog (also has a bit about Drake’s drum as mentioned in Ch 1 & 2); wiki-article on Richard Grenville
Cádiz (Ch 7, p. 252) Wikipedia article
El Escorial (Ch. 9, p. 289) Wikipedia article
Land’s End Wikipedia article
Medina-Sidonia (Ch 9, p. 291) Wikipedia article
La Rochelle (Ch 5, p. 163) Wikipedia article
Plymouth Wikipedia article
Plymouth Hoe (Ch 3, p. 98) Wikipedia article

Historical Events etc

Battle of Lepanto Wikipedia article (they used a very different name for this in the book - please add it here if you encounter it)
Spanish Armada (Ch 8, p. 268) Wikipedia article

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I already bought the book (which was a challenge of it’s own to be honest), but did not start yet.
Is anyone else reading it? :slight_smile:

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Yeah I’m still planning on reading it! I also have the book already. I think we’d previously talked about starting in June (which is next week already, terrifying!)

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Oh yeah, good point!

By the way for everybody who wants to read this book together, please organize yourselves :slight_smile: I only provided this thread but I’m not planning to participate in the reading as I’ve already read the first volume (I might lurk and answer questions, though, if I’m able to). So just make yourselves at home here and read it in a way that fits everybody.

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Yep, I’m definitely still reading it. I’ll likely start next weekend, even though June starts Wednesday, just due to work-related stuff, but I’ll be here! :slight_smile:

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woohoo, nice! I might start this week or weekend but I have the feeling that I will be slow to start with getting used to the historical stuff so I’m sure you will easily catch-up with any head start I have!

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I think I’ll probably start next week (or the weekend) too :slight_smile:

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I’m not going to seriously start my reading until the weekend, but I am going to give the the first few pages a once-over and start filling in the vocab sheet. :+1:

I’m reading on Kindle, so my page number indications may be a little wonky. :\

Edit: a fun thing already: the sea and the sky are described with different kanji for “blue”:

あの空の蒼と海の青が溶け合う彼方には『何か』がある。

Anyone know if there’s any more reason for it than a stylistic one?

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I got curious so skimmed through a couple of articles like this: https://meaning-dictionary.com/「青」と「蒼」の違いとは？分かりやすく解釈/ and this one: https://prumodela.co.jp/2019/07/30/sato-sakura-blue/ - this one is actually about an exhibition but there are some pictures hahah.

It seems like the difference is that 青 is the more generally used term and kind of fresh/vibrant, whereas 蒼 is more dull/washed out? I’m not 100% though, the articles are very wordy and a bit confusing :sweat_smile:

So supposing that I’m correct I guess it would be that it’s being used to contrast the sky being a kind of a pale dullish blue colour whereas the sea is more vibrant and striking :ocean:

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So just a few pages in (pages 6-7 in my Kindle version), we meet 森崎和哉, 海斗’s friend. I’m having trouble parsing what exactly their relationship is with each other. Are they basically just acquaintances who hang out through necessity, and/or don’t have much in common?

Also, 海斗’s little spiel on smiling for the camera is hilarious to me for some reason. Actors do it, and they’re pros, so they must know what they’re doing.

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I must confess I don’t remember exactly what we learn when, but we will learn much more about their relationship soon.

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Okay, cool, so it’s not just me.

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Started reading this book today at the seaside! Seemed on theme haha :beach_umbrella::ocean:

I’m still only at page 12 or so (4% kindle) Kaito has mainly just been complaining about everyone in his life. At the start I was like “hmm Kaito, seems like you are being pretty hard on your friend for no real reason” but after we got more detail on his parents and how that impacts how his peers treat him I have a bit more sympathy. Kaito does kind of talk like a shonen protag though :laughing: wondering how people in the past will react to that.

Also, it might just be kindle being weird but does this book have no chapter breaks at all? This is of great sadness as finishing on a chapter break is satisfying.

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It does have 9 chapters iirc, but in my Bookwalker copy I couldn’t see them either (and annoyingly it wouldn’t find the chapter numbers when I searched for them :rage:)
I unfortunately deleted my chapter markers right before we set up this club, so I cannot give you the percentages, I’m sorry - I just remember that the first chapter was pretty long…

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I just scrolled through to check and the 2nd chapter starts at 14%/page 39 in the kindle version…so I have a while to go :sweat_smile:

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Chapter 1 done! (post above deleted cos the spoiler tags didn’t work and I panicked :sweat_smile:)

Thoughts so far (beware of spoilers :pirate_flag:)

I’m enjoying it so far, despite the fact that I’m currently having to look up A LOT of vocab (hopefully that will get better as get further in…or worse when we get to the past :see_no_evil:). There has been some fun idiom use so far as well which I always enjoy. Currently liking Kazuya more than Kaito, as Kaito seems to have zero filter and the tendency to be a bit of a dick so far, so I was inwardly cheering when Kazuya called him out for his nonsense. That said, Kaito did react to that pretty well and it’s fun to start with a flawed character! I found the section in this chapter where they were talking about parallel worlds very funny, some heavy foreshadowing going on there :laughing:. Excited to read more once I’m done with this weeks カフカ!

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Response to sycamore

Hey, that’s good to hear!

I found the first chapter to be quite heavy as well, what with the father’s job and the mother’s shenanigans and everything.

It’s actually not so much about present vs. past but rather about “action parts” vs “history / introductory parts” where we learn something about the world. The former ones are much faster paced and less loaded with difficult vocabulary than the latter ones.

Now that I write this - I wonder whether Japanese readers feel the same? Are the action parts actually written in this way to allow the (even native) reader to read them quickly so that they will get a feeling of “it’s fast; things are happening”? Or is this just the case for us language learners who struggle through the difficult vocab? :thinking:

Pretty much my impression as well. He got his act together a bit better at the end of the train ride, but before that, my-oh-my! :laughing:

Yes, I actually hate these super-powered can-do-everything incredible protagonists…

The author is making reeeeally sure that we get the message here :joy_cat:
I actually liked that bit a lot. It sort of provides a “real” explanation for weird things that happened in the past.

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Meanwhile I’ve put my chapter markers back into my copy (because I needed to know where chapter 1 ended :sweat_smile:) and I’ve added the percentages to the OP. These are the percentages from the Bookwalker version. If you have vastly different percentages, please feel free to ping me so we can add them to the OP as well.

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Looks to be only 1% off the kindle version so close enough to still be very helpful, thanks!

Re. the more actioney text being an easier read than the more contemplative or explanatory stuff, I guess that probably is the case even for native speakers in a sense. Like, I feel like the art of any good action scene, is that to keep up the pacing you have to give only the necessary information (like, it would be weird if there was a chase down the high street and then while that was happening the prose decided to tell you about how one of the characters mothers worked in the bank that’s on the street, or had a long interlude about the history of the town*). That’s in any language, though the difference is probably more pronounced for those of us that have to stop and figure things out/look up vocab :sweat_smile:

  • as I write this I’m having vague memories of a chase through the sewers in les miserables that is accompanied by like 40 pages about the sewers history….but I still think it generally holds true lol.
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Has anyone else started besides me and sycamore?

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